Agua Fresca 20: From Apricot Leather (Amardine)

Here’s an agua that I have never encountered in Mexico which is why there’s no name for it in Mexico.  And why there’s no drink of this kind, as we’ll see, is a bit of a puzzle.

But an agua made from apricot leather is clearly part of the wide-flung family of fruit waters and you run across it in Middle Eastern cookbooks. I was reminded of it when skimming one of my favorite Eastern Mediterranean cookbooks Sonia Uvezian’s Recipes and Remembrances from an Eastern Mediterranean Cooking.  It would be worth buying for the wonderful evocative historical illustrations she has pulled together though there is much, much more than this, including a mention of what in Mexico would be called an agua fresca or an agua de sabor (flavored water) made from amardine, aka apricot leather.

Amardine (as I am sure you all know is simply a thin layer lightly sweetened apricot puree dried until it is leathery). Here are some pieces stacked against a glass on my kitchen counter glowing like stained glass in the wintery sun.

Apart from eating it on its own, Uvezian suggests soaking it, and then mashing it or blending it, adding a little more sugar and having it chilled as a drink or a breakfast dish (presumably less diluted).

And here I’ve done just that.  I soaked a couple of pieces all night in water.  In the morning they were soft enough to beat up with a fork.  The drink did, as Uvezian suggests, need a little more sugar.  And I think I prefer this rather thicker than the average agua fresca, more the consistency of what Mexicans would call a nectar.   That brings out the apricot much better.  In fact, I’d take this in preference to all but the best fresh apricots.

(And if you are wondering about the pitcher, it’s one I got free from Nestlé when I bought a couple of big cans of full milk dried milk powder, called Nido here, for making yogurt.  I’m rather fond of it.  The corny cows remind me of the anthropologists’ joke about a small boy who found a pile of condensed milk cans.  “Look Mom,” he said, “here’s a cow’s nest.”  More practically it measures a liter, fits into the fridge, holds a perfect amount of agua fresca for a couple of days, and–so rare–pours without splattering everywhere).

But back to the business in hand.  This is a great addition to the agua fresca repertoire.  And if you can prevent yourself eating up all the apricot leather, Uvezian points out it can also be used to flavor soups, stews, and ice cream, or dipped in beaten egg and fried.  Now there’s something I have to try.

And the puzzle?  Mexico makes lots of fruit leathers, guava being a particular favorite.  But I’ve never seen or read of any of them being made into agua fresca.  I wonder why.   Perhaps it is that there is a lot of fruit available cheaply year round.  But would this have been the case before modern transport?

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